EduTechie.com

Student Tip: Use Google Docs and Calendar to Import Class Syllabi

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 03:38:02 +0000

There was a great post by a google student ambassador today that walks you through setting up your classes in a Google Spreadsheet and importing them into a calendar. Saves tons of time when creating a calendar.

You can read the entry below:

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Flash Websites? There’s a Phone for That.

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:38:02 +0000

To any ne’er-do-blog-read layman, the full page ad that Motorola just put in the New York Times might just seem oddly worded. To anyone who has even considered considering themselves a gadget geek — or has, at least, turned on their TV anytime in the past year and a half and seen Apple’s “There’s An App For That” campaign — there’s no question who this one’s aimed at.

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Download Upgraded Skype Beta 5.0 with 10 Way Video Calling

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:19:04 +0000

“Few days back Gmail came up with Video calling integration to Gtalk to give competition to Skype and thus to stay ahead in competition Skype came up with its upgraded beta 5.0 version known as beta 5.0.0.123 with 10 way video calling.”

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Priority Inbox for Gmail – Perfect for Inbox Task Managers

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 04:19:02 +0000

I have held off talking about the recent Gmail Priority box until I got a chance to test it out myself. This morning it showed up in my Gmail and I have to say I think it is great!

For those that follow the “Google’lize” system you know that I only check my email twice a day. That means that when I open my email there are often over 50 emails in there. With the new priority inbox I can easily see the most important items first and reply to those.

This is also great for those folks, like my mom, who just keep all the stuff they need to do in their inbox. They now have a way to sort the emails by importance and even organize them a little bit.

The only thing I think would be better would be if I could easily reorder the emails like I can do with my Google Task list. That would be awesome!

You can read more about priority inbox and see a video intro at the link below.

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4 Gmail Phone Power Tricks

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:19:02 +0000

As many of your know last week Google announced that you can now call in and out of Gmail for free. I have used this amazing feature dozens of times this past week and it has been fantastic. It works like a charm! I am very pleased and it has changed the way I work.

Google posted an article with 4 great tips this morning that will really help you even more!

1. Call Screening – If you set up Google Voice you can screen your calls and instead of answering click the “Screen” button. It will send the caller to voicemail and you can listen in while they leave a message. You can click “Join” at any time to pick up the call.

2. Switch calls between Gmail and other phones – You can hit the asterisk (*) button at any time to ring your other phones in Google voice and switch between your computer and your cell phone. Excellent!

3. Record incoming calls – Press the 4 at any time and you can record a conversation. Remember that both parties will hear the notification that it is being recorded though.

4. Click to dial with the Chrome Extension – You can install a great Chrome extension that allows you to call numbers you find while browsing the internet with a click of a button.

You can read the whole article at the link below.

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Google Tags: A Real Productive Tool for Small Business Marketing

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 15:11:57 +0000

Over the years, Google Places, Google Adwords, Google Apps and YouTube have become an important element that small businesses can’t live without. The search engine legend has a special love for small businesses and has recently introduced the Google Small Business Blog. Another recent “buzz” among small business marketers is the Google Tags.

Small business owners that already use Google Places can now use the newly introduced tool “Google Tags.” For a minimal amount, businesses can now get a small yellow tag that appears with the business Place page listing and gives it a distinctive appearance in the crowd of local search results. The tag has proved very effective within a short period of its introduction.

When a surfer looks at the Place listing, the yellow tag icon immediately grabs his attention and his mind drives him to click the button at once. Don’t you think this is an excellent tactic to move a small business to the top of the visitors’ click likelihood? Of course, yes. In the highly competitive advertising world, it is really hard to see a marketing tool like Google Tags that is quite inexpensive, but very effective.

For more detailed information about Google Tags, read the post “Local business? Heard of Google’s Tags?” published on Online Marketing Performance blog.

This is a recent blog post about Google Tags on Google Official Blog – “Google Tags makes it easy as pie to find local customers.”

General Motors announces Android application

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:29:27 +0000

They have a phone application for everything nowadays… Really. I’ve seen some phone apps that come close to putting Nintendo DS and Playstation PSP to shame. What’s probably most amazing to me, however, is how much control the phone apps are gaining. With just the simple click of the “download” link on your phone’s screen, you can control your every life’s aspects from your cell phone. I remember when “snake” was the bees knees; times they have changed.

Well now you control every aspect of your life and now your car’s. General Motors is launching an app on the droid/iPhone markets for 2011 year model cars that lets you do and check anything on the car, from anywhere.

For starters, you can do simple and expected things such as start and turn off your vehicle, you can of course lock or unlock your doors and trunk, you can sound the horn and alarm as well as flash or turn on the lights. It gets better. You are also able to review diagnostic information, view fuel level and range, oil life status, individual tire pressure gauging, and average gas consumption. If that’s not enough, you can also check other information such as the odometer, VIN, OnStar account information, and a few more tidbits. The app promises to give customers complete versatility to their vehicles “soon”.

So how does it work? General Motors tapped into their own OnStar satellite network and cellular networks combined to connect you to your car. That also means that since the app uses your cellular network, you can access all options from anywhere you get service; even if your car is nowhere near you. I can’t help but wonder, now, how long it’ll take for other automakers to follow suit. Mercedes and BMW have similar emergency software and there are a few others who are utilizing Google and Microsoft software in their vehicles that all sound like great bases for getting similar apps for their vehicles, however none have been announced at this point.

The auto industry’s first cell-phone app sounds great but it’s not flawless. I must point out the dangers of using the app including the fret of losing your phone or worse, having it stolen. What if you’re at a club and someone grabs your phone and runs outside? What if you also just got a brand new Caddy CTS and you don’t have a password on your phone? You could also be at a restaurant and someone could be looking over your shoulder as you’re locking your doors from your seat, that person could wait for the perfect opportunity to snatch the phone and he already knows you have a car made by GM– all he has to do is walk around and press buttons on the phone until the car pops up. I’m also curious to know what insurance companies would have to say seeing as how they don’t really seem to be as helpful if you leave your keys in your car; does that mean they consider you losing your cellphone, leading to the loss of your car, irresponsible as well?

10 Reasons to Use Google Docs

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:38:02 +0000

Robert McGarvey wrote a great article yesterday with 10 great reasons to use Google Docs. He even mentions me and the “Google’lize your Life” book!

1. It’s free
2. It’s easy
3. It does collaboration better
4. You don’t need the features Google Docs lacks
5. Free up IT to do higher-value work
6. What? Me worry about sercurity?
7. Google Docs are polished tools
8. Any device, anywhere
9. Free off site back-up
10. Google will integrate telephony into Docs

You can read the whole article at the link below.

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Apple Adds Audio and Video Capabilities to ‘iBooks’

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:57:03 +0000

This is a great development in the ebook world. One step closer to multimedia books.

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Google Fiber: The Fastest Broadband Internet Network Ever

Jeff VanDrimmelen — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:07:37 +0000

Google fiber is the latest in the great innovations of the search engine giant. It is the batch of ultra high-speed broadband networks, which the company announced earlier this year. The project aims to deliver one gigabit-per-second fiber connections for 50,000 to 5, 00,000 people. The consumers are expected to pay a “competitive price” for the access, said Google.

As defined by a Google representative in the recently launched website Fiberforcommunities.com, “Imagine collaborating with classmates around the world while watching live 3D video of a university lecture. Universal, ultra high-speed internet access will make all this and more possible.”

The company started to accept applications from cities and towns ever since its announcement of the project. The greatest suspense is that the winning municipalities will only be announced at the end of this year.

Google fiber has received a warm welcome from the people of U.S. As said by the company that has long been the king of innovations, it has received “1,100 community responses and more than 194,000 responses from individuals.” Google has posted a thank you video for thanking “every community and individual that submitted a response, posted a YouTube video, started a website, joined a rally or otherwise let their voice be heard.”

Google product manager James Kelly strongly believes that this project will surely have a great demand, as he says, “If one message has come through loud and clear, it’s this: people across the country are hungry for better and faster Internet access.”

Also read this interesting post: Google Fiber inspires WTF film festival.